We could have gone home together
by TheStardust
Summary: So young, so lethal. So dangerous, so raw. All they have done their whole life is trained, and trained harder to be what they are now- dangerous, lethal. Is that all she, he is? The untold story of the "girl with the knife" and the "monstrous boy", who had one of the biggest chances of winning the 74th Hunger Games.. A Clato story.
1. Into the arena

Chapter 1- Into the arena  


**[I wrote this cause when I got my Hunger Games copy- after much drama- I was hoping to find more details on Cato and Clove, there were so little about them in the movie, and I was disappointed to find the book had even less details. So I wrote this as a consolation!]**

****** Clove's POV.**There will be three chapters. Please do review. All kinds of reviews are welcomed. And Happy reading!  


All my life, I've been trained to be a fighter, to be the best and above the best at the one skill that I have practiced my whole life to master, most importantly to be able to kill with that skill. So when the time comes, I could volunteer for the Hunger Games and bring pride to my district. There have always been two choices – be the winner or die a fighter. Because the kind of life not bound by these two choices is to stay in the drain, not able to move and definitely not able to climb out, stuck in the mud forever. And in district 2, no one will choose that life if they have two other choices besides. So we are trained to fight, to kill. The message is clear – kill all and be the victor or kill one more before you go down. Uphold the name of your district. And that's what I focused on every single time I aimed my knife. I must never miss a target.

So when the reaping day came and they asked for the girl volunteer, I was seized by desperation. Desperation to grab the one chance I have to get out of the drain. So I volunteered. Without thinking twice, before I hesitate and change my mind. Then they asked for the boy volunteer and I saw Cato raised his hands, after hesitating a moment. I wasn't expecting Cato to volunteer. In fact, I was sure he was going to volunteer next year, so why this sudden change of mind. For some reason I felt a sort of uneasiness as I watch him take the stairs to join me onstage.

When we shake hands, I gave him a questioning look but he only gave me a blank stare and said,

"So here we are again, fighting together, as always."

We used to train together in our career training center in district 2. We hardly talk, only sometimes. Cato doesn't like to talk much; he just settles most things with his sword. Sometimes we sword-fight and sometimes he would offer to be my target just for fun when I throw my knives, wearing a body armor of course.

And here now we are in the arena, the game had begun. A few have been killed, some more left to be killed.

"Somebody make a fire," says Cato fuming.

Of course Cato is seething with anger, _girl on fire_ just made us look stupid in front of everyone. But that's only because she is thirty feet above us, on a tree. Well, lover boy is right, she can't stay there forever.

So after sometime, we sat around the fire. By we, I mean Cato, myself, Marvel and Glimmer from district 1 and of course lover boy. That's who we have made allies with, at least for some time.

"Just wait till I get my hands, no, my sword into her, and I'll make it slow." growls Cato playing with his sword.

"I'll give anything to watch," replied Glimmer with a flirty smile.

Cato looked over at me, and I gave him a slight smile. I know that right now inside his head, he's going over twenty possible ways of killing _girl on fire_ with his sword. That's Cato, always devising multiple ways to kill someone, in case one didn't work out.

The wood's quiet and its dark now. And I'm exhausted.

"Maybe we should get some sleep, " I suggested.

"Go on, I'll keep first watch, "replied Cato.

So, I lay down on the bed of dry leaves and twigs, using my bag as pillow. I drifted on and off, waking up at the slightest sound. I hold tight to my knife, just in case. Marvel's snoring, lover boy lie on his back, eyes closed but I know he's not asleep. Glimmer seems to be in deep sleep right next to Cato, must be tired with all the flirting. Cato sits with his back against a tree looking at the sky. He looked over at me when I shifted my leg. He didn't smirk or say anything. He just looked at me, a blank stare, the same stare he had given me on reaping day. Somehow that stare disturbs and frustrates me at the same time because I don't know what he's thinking. If I asked he would probably say with a smirk,

"umm, I'm devising the best way to kill you."

When he looked away, I closed my eyes again. My mind drifted to the small discussions we had during training in the Capitol. Cato and I had debated whether we should make allies or go by ourselves. We decided it's better to go with the usual, to make allies with the other career tributes until the real game would begin when we decide to separate and turn on each other.

"It's the quickest and most convenient way to end it, they have done it every year, and it's proven to be effective," he had said.

So I agreed "Right, so let's do it, let's go say hi to our allies."

Cato grabbed my hand and turned me around, so I could see the District 1 guys and said with his signature evil smirk;

"Should be easy, they just glitters a lot, that's it. When we are done with the others, you can take down the boy, the girl's mine."

I gave him a look and he said, "Just want to see if she glitters in death too."

"Might as well play some games while we are still at it, " he added with a smirk.

"What game?" I asked.

"Watch," he said making a beeline for district 1, I followed. He went straight to Glimmer with a smile and introduced us. The thing is Cato usually smirks; he doesn't smile, unless he is up to something so I know what he is up to. Either Glimmer is falling for his game or she's playing along, she gave him a dazzling smile and starts to chatter away.

I remember wondering if she was always going to chatter like that throughout the games. Suddenly I was looking forward to the part where we are done with the others and left with only district 1. That's what I thought during training. But now, today, right here inside the arena, the thought is making me uneasy again. What happens when we are done with district 1? Cato and I had avoided discussing about what happens when we have killed everyone else. I tried to get there when we were discussing strategies but he seems to be avoiding the subject so I decided what will happen will happen. What does it matter, as long as either one of us won, it'd still be district 2. What does it matter which one of us kill the other, right? We are not supposed to care about that part, right? I have never let myself focus on anything besides the games, before and after the reaping. I'm not about to change that now, not at this critical moment.

And I was done sleeping for one night, so I called over to Cato,

"Hey, it's my turn to keep watch, you can sleep."

"I don't feel like sleeping at all," he says.

But exhaustion must have gotten the better of him, cause he started snoring after sometime, his back still against the tree, not even bothering to lie down. I watched him sleep; he doesn't look so dangerous in sleep, not so much like his usual self. And I think about his other self, the one that I'll never get to know.

I must have drifted off for some time. Something is buzzing around me, maybe bees, and then I heard Glimmer gave a shriek and Marvel swearing. I opened my eyes and saw them, tracker-jackers, they're all around us.

"Run!" shouted Cato.

We started to run. Glimmer's surprise shriek turned into a painful one. I looked back and saw that about twenty or more tracker jackers were on her, I stopped without meaning to, but Cato grabbed my hand urging me to run, so we left her and ran.


	2. Unexpected

Chapter 2- Unexpected

We are almost at our base camp, the wood's spinning all around me and my hands and neck hurts where the tracker jackers had stung me. I tried to keep running but my pace is becoming irritatingly slow.

"Keep going," I heard Marvel yell somewhere behind me.

"Come on Clove, we are almost there," urged Cato dragging me along.

We had just reached the camp when Cato said, "You guys stay here, I'm going back."

"What?!" He must be going mad.

And I must be hallucinating because there are two Catos in front of me.

The one closer to me is shaking my shoulders and shouting, "Do you hear me, stay here until I come back, I'm going back to see if I can finish off district 12," he said.

The other Cato stands at a little distance, his arms folded in front of him, and he just stares at me with a blank face. I look at him and then back at the Cato who is in front of me and started to say,

"No, the tracker jackers.." but I couldn't finished the sentence, everything went black.

When I finally came around for good- after what seem like a lifetime of torture, nightmare and hallucinations- I found Cato and Marvel talking strategies and there's another boy, must be district 3.

"Hi, how are you feeling?" asked Cato when I got up to my feet to see if I could stand without the trees spinning again. Yeah they are standing alright.

"I'm good," I said giving him a thumbs-up.

I check my hands and neck but the wounds are already fading. I look over at Cato and Marvel and their wounds seem to be fading too.

"They sent an ointment for the sting, "explained Cato nodding his head towards a small container lying near his backpack. "Tracker jackers are the least of our concerns now." he added.

I sat down with them and asked Marvel, "Glimmer?" but I already know the answer, there was no way she could have gotten away with those many number of stings.

"She didn't make it," replied Marvel quietly.

I didn't say anything and we sat in silence for some time. "What about lover boy?" I asked, not that I was particularly concerned, just to break the silence.

"And _girl on fire," _I added turning to Cato.

"Well she got away because lover boy gave her time to. So I cut him up instead," replied Cato through gritted teeth.

"But the hallucinations got to me and I had to run back here, he won't last very long with that cut though, so he's as good as gone." He explained with some satisfaction.

And then Marvel said, "Guys, look." pointing at something above the trees, well inside the woods.

Smoke. Another idiot making a fire. Might as well take that one out too. So we left the boy from district 3 to guard our supplies and went after the smoke.

When we reached the place there was no one, just the fire, so we knew it was a trap. Before we could ponder on who could have set the trap, there came the sound of an explosion.

"Boooommm!" it ranged through our ears and shook the ground, then another one followed and the next one.

We ran back to our camp and found what we had dreaded. Somebody had blown up all our supplies. I felt anger surging through me, Marvel is swearing but Cato is mad beyond words.

"Aaarrghh," he screamed and turned to the boy from district 3 who started to flee seeing the look in Cato's eyes. It's no use, Cato reached for his head from behind, holding him in a deadlock.

"Cato!" I shouted, but it was too late, the boy fell to the ground motionless and seconds later, we heard a cannon go off.

"I'm going after whoever set up the trap," said Marvel and left.

I focused myself on trying to calm Cato down. It's not going to be easy.

It's been a few days since we went after that retched smoke. Marvel is gone; Katniss killed him because he killed her little ally with whom she was setting up the smoke trap for us. And _girl on fire _is also the one who decided to blow up all our supplies; only days after she dropped that tracker jacker nest on us. She has some nerve. So all our allies are gone, and it's just Cato and me now. And I've decided that after all she, Katniss, did to us, I'm definitely going to stand by and watch Cato kill her slowly in his way. She has been asking for it since day one.

I'm wondering how the game will play out now. We were so confident we had more than a good chance of winning this year. But nothing was going according to our plan. The game is changing in front of us and the odds aren't exactly in our favor.

"This will do," said Cato. We were collecting dry leaves and twigs to make a fire. So we sat across each other, warming our hands over the fire and eating some leftovers of the food our sponsors sent us just after Katniss blew up our supplies.

"So, it's just the six of us now – us, both from district 12, a boy from district 11, what's his name?" asked Cato.

"Thresh," I replied.

"And the girl with the fox-face, which district is she?" he asked again.

"I don't know, I didn't bother to find out. I thought we would be fighting the final games with the other careers." I replied.

"I thought so too, this was unexpected," he observed and looked up the sky, lost in thought.

As I watch him, I realized how close we are to the final games. We need to talk about what happens if we are the only ones left in the arena, if we did manage to finish off the others. What then? Should we let the game-makers decide, wait till they work up a strategy to finish one of us? Or should we take matters in our hands and finish this on our own? I tried to muster up the courage to bring up the subject. Just then, he look at me with an uncomfortable expression on his face. And I knew that he must be thinking the same thing.

But before either of us could say anything, Claudius Templesmith's voice boomed down on us, first congratulating the six of us who remains. And then he said,

"Tributes, there has been a rule change in the Games, both tributes form the same district will be declared winners, if they are the only ones left in the arena."

Cato and I looked at each other for a long time, trying to make sense of Claudius' words.


	3. Oblivion

It took some time for the meaning to sink in. I tried to study Cato's face as I make sense of Claudius' words, trying to read the emotions running through his face, but there were so many and they were so fast I couldn't make them out, except one. That one emotion, I could read loud and clear, because that's the one emotion I'm feeling right now. Hope. We could go home. Together. We wouldn't have to kill each other and live with the guilt and the pain for the rest of our lives. Because I know that if I kill Cato to get out of the arena, I'll never be the same again. I'll never get over the nightmares I'll have after the arena. I'll have to spend the rest of my life trying to keep myself sane. Considering that, dying here sounds like a much easier, better option. But Claudius has saved us, for once, the game-makers has made a move that has given us hope.

When Cato's face ran out of emotions, it broke into a smile, a genuine smile. I've never seen him smile like that before. The smile and the light from the fire lit up his face. He looked more than relief, he looked happy. And that's a lot because in the district, we hardly ever have any reasons to be happy. I smiled back at him, relief coursing through me. We never have to touch the dreaded subject.

He looks like he wanted to say a lot of things but he just said, "Good, we don't have to kill each other then!"

He came to my side and lie down on his back. I wanted to tell him how relief I was, but I'm afraid that if I say the words out loud, it would all go away, the hope, our only hope. I want to hang onto it until we know that we wouldn't need it anymore, until we are safe. Because it still sounds impossible. If we get out of here, we have the rest of our lives to talk. To talk about anything. So I lay down on my back too and we spent the rest of the night watching the sky.

The next time we hear Claudius' voice, he's inviting us to a feast in the Cornucopia. Meaning, he's inviting us to a bloodbath. It will be our chance to take out our strongest competitors. At the moment, it would be Thresh and Katniss. If we take them out, Peeta and Fox-face won't be a problem. So Cato and I made plans.

Since I cannot tackle Thresh, we decided that while I tackle Katniss, Cato will go after Thresh. It took a lot for Cato to give up Katniss to me. But I convinced him that I won't let him down. Besides it's our best bet.

"Okay, she's yours. Give the audience a good show," he said finally.

"I will," I promised giving him his smirk.

The day of the feast, we decided to set off for the Cornucopia just before dawn. We would have to separate. As I wait for Katniss over at the Cornucopia, Cato will go confront Thresh. We would have to keep an eye out for Fox-face too but we don't think Peeta will be in any position to come out front.

"Ok, I'll meet you here afterwards then," said Cato holding me with an intense gaze.

"Right." I nodded. My heart is beating fast, if we succeed in taking Katniss and Thresh out today, we are almost out of this.

I turned and started to walk, still feeling slightly nervous.

"Clove" called Cato.

I turned and he said, "Aim well, don't miss your target" he said.

"I won't. You make it quick, don't hold out on Thresh" I told him.

So we set off and I waited for Katniss out in the Cornucopia. But it was Fox-face who came out first and made a sprint for the bag with her district no. on it. I had to let her go. If I confront her, I would lose out on Katniss and I cannot afford that. As fox-face makes her way out of the Cornucopia, Katniss dash in, running straight for the bag meant for her. I took after her, aiming my knife right for her neck, she deflected it with her bow. She turned and reached for her arrow, I aimed another one and it hit right at her forehead above her eyebrows. I bore down on her, dragging her to the ground. We struggled for a while but I 'm on her again and I'm thinking how to give the audience a good show.

"I promised Cato if he let me have you, I'd give the audience a good show," I told her, pressing both her hands onto the ground.

"We are going to kill you. Just like we did your pathetic little ally." I said.

She's struggling to get me off her but that's not going to happen until I'm done with her. I need to get this over with. Just as I brought down my knife on her, I felt a tug and the next thing I knew, someone is pulling me off Katniss, powerful arms wrapped around me and pushed me to the ground. Thresh. What is he doing here? Cato must have gone the wrong way to find him. Thresh is so strong, I couldn't move a muscle under his arms, I felt helpless. I tried to fight but it's no use, he is too strong for me. There's no way I could fight him.

"Did you kill Rue, was it you?" he asked.

"No, no it wasn't me." I cried.

Then I saw the stone in his hand, the size of a loaf of bread. He's going to kill me any second.

"Cato! Cato!" I called out, terrified.

"Clove!" I heard him answer but he is too far away. He would never make it here in time.

As I watched Thresh raise the stone, all the plans and hope we had had since coming inside the arena flashed through my mind and they crumbled down and vanished in front of me. Thresh brought down the stone hard against my skull. I couldn't see or feel for a few seconds, my mind went numb, taking some time to register the pain. And then I felt it, the pain, so intense that I couldn't even scream.

"Clove!" I heard Cato's pained voice. He is near now, maybe near enough to see me.

Thresh released me, knowing that he had done his job and ran towards the bags. And then I saw Cato rush towards me in a daze, not even bothering to go for Thresh or Katniss, who have been watching me. His face is constricted in pain as he took me in. I felt the warmth of the blood flowing from my head on my face and neck. The pain vibrates through my brain, my whole body, and I'm screaming inside but I couldn't make a sound. Everything around me is a blur. I felt Cato's arms around me, trying to lift my head. His hands trembled as he fumbles through my head, looking at the damage.

"Clove! Stay with me. Stay with me!" he begged. At that moment, I realized that all our plans and hopes were vain; we were never going to make out of the arena. Not us. Not together. It had sounded impossible even then, because it was impossible. We were never going home together.

"We were supposed to go home together. You can't die." His voice is resigned; he must know that there is no way I could survive this. No amount of medicine any sponsor could think of could undo the damage Thresh did to my skull.

He is crying now, tears streaming down his face, hitting mine. And as I watch him cry, I felt a pang, regret that we would never get to know each other. I would never get to know his other self, the not-so-dangerous Cato, the one I saw a glimpse of when he had slept in the woods just a few days ago. We would never get to talk about anything apart from strategies. I saw him volunteer again in my mind, his blank face. I never got to ask; I will never know what it meant.

"Please don't die! Don't leave me here alone!"

I wish I could say something, anything, but I couldn't think of anything, and it seems futile at the moment. All I could do is look at him. I feel numb. The pain is gone. I know that Cato is right here with me but I saw and hear him like from a dream. Tears streamed down my face as I watch Cato begging me to stay alive, that's one thing I won't be able to do.

And as I drifted into oblivion, the last thought in my mind was wanting Cato to get out of here and away from this place, for him to never feel the pain I felt, for him to go home and be safe.

**[ Hope you liked it. Thanks for the reviews and thanks for reading.]**


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